Top Social

Main Menu

Color Club The Uptown - New Formula

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Today's regularly schedule post has been postponed (what? You think I just post whenever, nah...I have a schedule, with Google calendar reminders and everything...although I don't tend to stick to it...heh.) Anyways, recently I found myself in the middle of a small controversy...or a large one if you where also searching for the Uptown like I was. My #1 polish lemming, the one thing I couldn't find and really wanted, is Color Club's The Uptown, from 2013's fall collection. It was a sheer purple jelly with color-shifting flakes. It's been sold out online for months and I can't find Color Club locally (I found some random bottles at CVS once, and got all excited, dragged my kids through the entire beauty section until I finally asked an employee if they had more in the hopes that The Uptown would be there but sadly, no).About a month ago I noticed that it was finally back in stock at Llarowe.com so I waited for a while until I had the money and took advantage of the Llarowe Store Grand Opening Sale. I was so excited! Then the day arrives, my nail mail is here, and to my disappointment...it didn't look the same as all the gorgeous swatches I had seen online. So I made a post in Polishaholics Anonymous, posting that picture above, asking if anyone knew if the formula had changed. You can see the post here if you happen to be a member.

UPDATE: I got permission from some lovely ladies to share their swatches of the original for comparison.

@paintmewithpolish- Becki

@teismom - Linda

@i_heartnailpolish - Kristy

Everyone agreed that it wasn't the same, some suggested it might be a mislabeled bottle of "Alias" and to contact Llarowe. Since it was cloudy and already almost dark, I decided to wait until morning to take some more pics in the hopes that the flakes where only visible in sunlight. They where not. So I contacted Llarowe and send in the next pic as an attachment.

The bottle in the top left corner is a screenshot from Llarowe's website. As you can see, mine looks nothing like it. Instead, I have a dark purple jelly with golden shimmer. Where are the flakes?

I got asked to send in more swatches, just to make sure, so I sent them this collage.

Let's have a closer look at some of them..please excuse the messy clean-up and dry cuticles. This was swatched and taken really quickly. I am wearing just one coat in all the pics, so you can see how opaque it is.

The Uptown? In my light box.

In my light box, on a cloudy evening, all I saw was golden shimmer on a dark purple base.

Sun came out the next morning. Look, there be some color shifting happening in the bottle. I got my hopes up a bit.

Bottom of the bottle so you can see I'm not making this up. The flakes look golden and very small.

Outside, hoping for better results...nope. I can see the shift happening in the bottle but not on my nails. If I squint I can sorta make out some pretty, shimmery, flakes, but they are very small. Don't get me wrong, this is a really pretty color, but it's not The Uptown.

Light box and LED lamp. Looks gorgeous, but no color shifting flakes. I started calling them micro-flakes/shimmer in the emails by this point.

Here's what it looks like on the brush. You can see the tiny golden flakes.

Indoors, indirect sunlight. I played around with angles until I finally found one that showed off the color shift in the bottle but barely on my nails.

Same angle and lighting as above, closer look.

So..what happened in the end? After several people also emailed Llarowe and they got in touch directly with Color Club, they confirmed that the formula had indeed changed since they couldn't get any more of the original color shifting flakes. They offered to refund my bottle, which I decided to keep in the end since what I originally wanted had been to exchange it, thinking it had been a mislabel. So...I have the sads, still no original The Uptown for me.

Ladies, if anyone has a swatch of the original and would allow me to post it here to compare, I'd appreciate it. There's lots on Google, but I'm not going to copy/paste someone else's work without their permission first.

5 comments on "Color Club The Uptown - New Formula"

I'm not a fan of the new version. I will never understand why nail polish companies do that. Either leave it the way it was or discontinue it. It is so very disappointing when they put out a polish calling it a new version and then it's not anything even close to the original.

I so agree with Kellie. Such a bad choice for color club to make. How to make sure they get dissatisfied customers? Doing just what they've done here. Man I am so disappointed :( saw the pretty pictures of the old formula on pinterest and fell in love. Found an online store selling it in my country and when it arrived it was nothing like the pictures. Had to Google it because the label said that it was indeed The Uptown and I found out the formula had been changed. Such a rookie mistake! Always google before ordering!! Always! I don't think this can even be called "changing the formula" when the color is completely different. Just discontinue the old one and rename the new color. I think the new color is pretty cute too but I have something very similar to it so it's even more of a bummer. Oh well....Thanks for the post!

Also, I just had to check the website I ordered from. I was sure the picture they had on there of The Uptown was exactly like the pics on pinterest and they still have a picture of the old formula...I better let them know to change it. So everyone beware when trying to get this polish. Some sellers are clearly not aware that the color has changed. I think color club could've done a better job at letting other sellers know too.

Custom Post Signature

About

I'm Nadia, a Puerto Rican mom of 2 kids who relocated to Florida and loves her nail polish. I'm a sci-fi and book nerd with an art degree, a husband, and a dog. A love of nail polish helped me overcome a nail biting habit of 22 years. I write about nail polish, nail art, beauty and cosmetics, with a little bit of lifestyle blogging. Contact me at nadia.l.velez@gmail.com.